Surge, al-Sadr, speculation

The NY Times has an article today discussing the decreasing number of attacks in Iraq, which have reportedly fallen to levels not seen since Feb. 2006. The number of Iraqi deaths in October is expected to be the lowest monthly total since then as well. Meanwhile, US troops deaths in Iraq, which had been at record or near-record highs through the end of August, dropped to 38 last month, the lowest figure since Mar. 2006.

In discussing the various factors involved, the 11th paragraph begins: "Moktada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric, has ordered his militiamen to stand down."

If one only read this article, one might think this was a recent development. As in, "things are going sooooooo well, even al-Sadr thought it was safe enough to stand down his militia."

One would be wrong. In fact, al-Sadr called for the militia stand down at the end of August.

Let's connect some dots. The surge began in January of this year. Throughout the year, as US troops levels increased there was no indication they were having any clear effect in decreasing violence. Each month, US casualties were higher than the corresponding month in 2006 (which was already a high-casualty year). As late as August, Iraqi civilian casualties were high, but September saw a significant drop, which apparently continued last month.

Through the summer there were comments about the lethality of explosively formed penetrators, supposedly provided by Iran ... which most certainly was not providing them to primarily Sunni groups, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, but rather to Shi'ite organizations, such as, just to pick a random example, al-Sadr's militia brigades.

So which is the bigger factor, the surge or al-Sadr's proclamation? There will, of course, be a spate of articles, talking heads comments, blog posts, etc., which claim the former, but the numbers don't bear that out. The surge occurred over a period of months during which violence and casualties were extremely high. Al-Sadr opens his mouth, and immediately violence and casualties drop spectacularly.

Sometimes the timely words of a self-interested lunatic mean more than a few 10's of thousands of American soldiers. Unfortunately, he could open his mouth again and reverse the trend nearly as quickly.